brewing in maine

I went ahead with the cider recipe and it’s fermenting in my 7.5 gallon bucket right now. Mistakes were made, but I’m thinking they won’t be a big deal.

I bought 7 gallons of local cider from the grocery store – it was pasteurized – and decided upon some research to skip the Camden tablets entirely. I sanitized the bucket, lock and cover and dumped it all in. OG on the cider was around 1.042.

Into the cider went both vials of yeast, a White Labs English Cider WLP775 and a White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale (Westmalle yeast). Then I realized that the cider temp had to be somewhere in the low fifties. Not good.

No action for 24 hours, but then a little bit of bubbling, and by this morning it’s cranking. The top of the bucket is bulged up and the lock is burping away. Without Campden tablets I do have to be very careful about the timing of my next sugar addition (the honey, molasses and cane sugar) because once the yeast are done something else might move in. I intend to check the gravity in another 24 hours to see where we’ve gotten to.

The cider yeast attenuation is over 80% and the Westmalle is around 80% tops so this should be nice, dry, strong cider when all is said and done.

The Tripel has been racked to its secondary where it will live for a week and then head into the fridge for a week of cold conditioning. I was shocked to find it had fermented all the way down to 1.008! That’s the best attenuation I’ve had yet, assuming I hit my OG which I’m not sure about, practically 90%.

It smells great and tastes good too, all kinds of clove, fruit and not much of an alcohol-heavy flavor at all. Looks like I survived my fermentation temp rise so far.

This one should come in around 9.5% ABV once all is said and done.

Last year we did two ciders, one straight up with wine yeast, another with British ale yeast. The Brit ale came out better, slightly less dry and with more complex flavor. The wine yeast cider was good, but very dry.

This year it’s going up a notch. The initial plan (likely to change) is as follows, for a 7 gallon batch:

7 gallons apple cider (~60 lbs.)
1 lb. molasses
1 lb. local honey (from our bees, thanks ladies!)
4lb. table sugar
1 cup pureed raisins

Wyeast 4766 Cider
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale

Ferment the cider first with the 4766. Then add sugars, raisins and Belgian yeast. After fermentation is wrapped up add 4oz medium toast bourbon-soaked French oak cubes along with the bourbon. Might try to use finings as well to clear it up.

The goal is a complex, strong cider that doesn’t ferment all the way down to dry, ready in time for the holidays. Might do it this weekend…maybe next.

So I’m going to try something new here on the blog. In addition to writing about homebrewing I am also going to review some beers, bars, etc. while I’m at it.

First beer on deck, Achel 8 Brune – the Dubbel.

Tasted in an Achel goblet. Chilled the bottle from room temp for maybe 15 minutes in the fridge so it might have been a touch warm, but it seemed about right.

Appearance – Deep reddish-brown in color with big head, both in quantity and size of bubbles. Didn’t lace much at all. Slightly cloudy appearance but mostly clear – probably some yeast knocked loose from the bottom of the bottle. The head subsided quickly.

Aroma – I was surprised to find not much of one. No hop presence I could detect, caramel and nut and a wonderful slightly funky/musty farmhouse kind of yeast smell.

Taste – Warm but without any solventy or alcoholic flavor. Caramel aftertaste married to more bitterness than expected. No hop flavor. Some tarty sour/farmhouse but proportionally not much compared to the aroma.

Mouthfeel – Silk. Absolute silky smoothness assisted by the fizz of high carbonation.

Drinkability/Experience – A strong but smooth beer that represents the style well. Smoother than some other Dubbels out there, Chimay included – possibly due to Achel’s use of Westmalle yeast and a step mash that results in good balance of dextrins.

The smells coming from the Tripel as it ferments have been pleasantly fruit-like but subtle. Once the cane sugar went in, however, the room nearly filled with a banana ester flavor. It must be something to do with the way the yeast process the cane sugar. Since we’re doing a renovation on the house my brewing books are boxed away in storage so I can’t do much for research.

I’m concerned that the esters will be too powerful, or linger too much, but maybe a lot of it will be reabsorbed as the yeast go dormant. Either way it’s to style from what I’ve read.

So I took a reading on the Tripel tonight, three days into fermentation, just as the yeast was slowing down (a bubble every 10 secs or so). The beer was starting to clear up a bit on the top couple of inches, with a settling yeast cloud below.

I roused the yeast first, then added the cooled syrup I made with 2.5 lbs of boiled table sugar.

Before the sugar was added, the gravity read 1012. That’s incredible for three days even with the large starter, and I think tells me my mash went as poorly as I thought. Although it’s consistent with the lower mash temps yielding a more fermentable wort. Since I forgot to take my original gravity measurement, I can only guess based on the recipe what my starting point was, but according to ProMash it’s 1061.  That’s 80% attenuation – more than Wyeast even specifies for the strain. So I’m naturally suspicious my OG was really in the 1052-1055 range.

Either way this beer seems to be very busy even a scant 15 minutes after the sugar addition – should be cranking tonight.

The Tripel is down from a high of 78 deg last to about 72 thanks to the window left open and a box fan blowing air across the carboy all night. Not sure I can cool it much further – it’s still very active.

Here’s a video of the Tripel fermentation, 24 hours in. We’re up to 76 degrees on the carboy thermometer-strip. Yikes – no good!

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Here’s some video of the Tripel mash process, putting the grain in the mash tun.

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I woke up this morning to the Tripel fermentation lock bubbling every second – no churning yet but things are definitely getting started. My starter seemed a little slow but this guy’s getting going. My only worry is temperature…I had it cooled to 64 degrees in the kettle according to the thermometer I trust, but the carboy temp strips said more like 67-68. They are reading 70 now so hopefully this means the fermentation is really in the 66-67 range and we’re on track. It’s going to heat up fast.

The gamble is whether I can find my blowoff hose before things really get roaring.